Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/165

 “The child was stringing beads on a cord, and seemed to need all her attention for this. Three red ones, one black three red ones, one black: it was pretty!

“Her name was Si Oopi Keteh. This in Sumatra means approximately little lady yes, Verbrugge, you know it, but Duclari has always served in Java. Her name was Si Oopi Keteh, but in my mind I called her ‘poor thing,’ or something like it, as in my estimate I was so infinitely exalted above her.

“It was late afternoon nearly evening, and the beads were put away. The land moved slowly away alongside us, smaller and smaller grew the Ophir behind us to the right. To the left, in the West, above the wide wide sea that has no limit until it meets Madagascar, and behind it Africa, the sun was sinking, and made his beams play ducks and drakes on the waves in curves that grew more obtuse every moment: he sought coolness in the sea. How the deuce did that thing run again?”

“What thing the sun?”

“No, no I used to make up verses in those days! Oh, delicious ones! Just listen:—